Grrl Power #189 – A few details were bound to slip through the cracks

Remember how last page I called myself a a big dummy who likes spending an inordinate amount of time on a single panel… I think this is everyone I’ve introduced over at Archon so far. Achilles is behind Max, Jiggawatt is absent though that’s intentional. It feels like there should be a lot more though. Of course the base isn’t left empty, there’s tons of support staff and lower level people manning the fort. I guess Maxima is getting them a Fajita Friday or something.

Links ahoy!The Valentines Day Sex Drive thingy is up. Check it out, throw me a vote over at TWC then hit the DeviantArt page for the regular and the “sans camo” version in wallpaper size.

And speaking of linking things from DeviantArt, I only realized recently that Fred Perry of Gold Digger (and Action Time Buddies) drew a thank you Maxima for me linking to his webcomics, the aforementioned Action time Buddies. If you haven’t already, check it out. The best way to describe it is Adventure Time meets My Little Pony.

Kyle Maxwell does a slacker superhero webcomic called Honey Badger and Friends and is a long time fan of Grrl Power. Maxima guest stars in his Valentines Day strip, and it doesn’t go well.

Discussion (583) ¬

The only ARCHON people I don’t see who weren’t mentioned by name are the General, Sandy, and Front-desk guy from comics 78 and 81 (who probably doesn’t count, but whom I vote should be named Bob, just because).

If you’re talking about the person mostly obscured by Maxima’s head, I’m pretty sure from DaveB’s comment that’s Achilles. It also makes sense that would be him since it’s right next to Mr. Amorphous, his best buddy. If you mean X is just back there in the corner being invisible, then I think I already covered that. :)

He he. I love it when folks talk at cross-purposes yet still make valid points.

NotFred is not referring to either of the visible corners, but is describing a point to the left of our field of view. Behind Maxima, but not shown in this panel.

Zu Long is self-evidently referring to just the visible panel, thus missing the previous point. But is perfectly correctly stating that if X was in our field of view, but hiding in plain sight, we could spot him, if only we were holding Halo’s truesight orb*.

* Talking about which, she really needs to test if somebody else can hold one of her orbs (staying within her usual range limits, of course) and make use of them. Truesight being a classic example. For instance if she is trying to convince somebody that they are being fooled by an illusion or invisibility**.

Dabbler would be an ideal candidate for the test, as she could grasp four of the known orbs and, assuming any of them work (and do not object to being fondled by anyone other than their mistress), then could test whether the limit of two orbs is due to physiology or an innate restriction of the orbs technomagic.

Personally my assumption is the latter. But it would still allow Halo to use one of her orbs, whilst loaning out another, for someone else to use. If the basic test yields positive results, that is.

** Do not be fooled into thinking that her truesight dispels an illusion, by the way. Dabbler made it clear that she had dropped her illusion only once it became clear she had been spotted. Presumably X did the same with his method of hiding. If he did not, then Dabbler was mistaken and her illusion had been dispelled, and she merely thought she had banished it herself.

That…sounds like a really fun experiment….with potentially really wacky outcomes…especially as the potential secondary user might not have as easy a time with fine-tuning the control.

Or…*evil grin* Imagine if a secondary controller was allowable, but only if Sydney was specifically focusing on allowing it? Flip something shiny across her field of vision at a critical moment, and let the chaos ensue!!!

I alluded to it, in my first comment. *wags tail* Although, to be honest, it was the more fact that she was blushing which I liked. In terms of looks, I felt she was even cuter in a couple of the frames from the previous issue. Either way, her sheer range of expressions continues to amaze me. Dave’s art is subtly versatile.

Yes, now that the secret is out, everyone and their 100′ robots and GMO terrorzoids will be out after them. They may have more problems from fans and paparazzi than enemies. Until someone decides to sue. Won’t work since they are US govt. You can’t sue them.

That curse about things becoming interesting should be exciting. For us, not them.

I would say in this situation, as much as we mock Maxima and otherwise say she’s horrible in a PR sense she’s a great leader. Putting herself up on the chopping block is what a good leader does when they understand that everyone is going to be facing things they can’t imagine.

We know Halo’s comic shop will be a great way to bring better PR to people, and it’s now saved. But Halo may not like the idea of all the public eye on her. Same with Harem. Dabbler should be ok. Math I can see turning it into one big dating game. Anvil will hate it. Heatwave will take time to figure things out, and so on. Cameras change things for each person and you can’t tell what they’ll do under the lights. This is how we get people on game shows missing 2+2.

I had an idea for the next Olympics to boost ratings. They have already added various stunt skiing/snowboarding events to the lineup. I want the ski jump to add another round where the contestants wear the winguits used by stunt skydivers. I think we could set some serious distance records.

One of the lovely cultural things about living in rural Bulgaria, is that all the villager children are encouraged to sing, dance and otherwise perform at all of the village events. Amongst which are traditional dances, some of which are fairly similar to Russian Cossack dancing.

Others can be followed, purely from their choreography, having some story or theme, such as courtship dancing. And this carries on into adult life, so they have a lot of talented dances and musicians who can entertain on the spur of the moment or in planned events.

Sadly, even since I emigrated a few years ago, I have seen a decline in the performance of traditional material, in favour of pop songs and other memes. Modern culture has it’s appeals, but seeing less of the spectacular dancing is not amongst them.

Loosing the atonal Bulgarian folk music, though, is to be appreciated. I cannot follow most of the lyrics, but emotively they seem to convey something like: “My cat is dead, my dog is dead, all my relatives are dying, I have an unpleasant disease…” For about five stanzas. Or more if they do not get shuffled off the stage quickly!

The only two shows I listen to regularly on the radio are country. My tastes are broader than that, mind, it just happens that for a while other programmes have not appealed. Stations with adverts are out for a start. And the last two shows that I loved got simultaneously banned by the BBC following a notorious incident. That said I came across an interesting show this week and intend to give it a try for a while. She shows real potential, and it is a shame that I have not come across her before.

Who wants to guess what kind of people halo’s parents will be? I have 4 main ideas of ironic/interesting/influential parents for her:
1. hippie mom x conservative dad (married or not (dad could have adopted her to give her the name))
2. supportive, normal, suburban couple (picture yard work and baking)(willing to accept anything)
3. uber-weird, parents (imagine crazy greeting rituals that leave outsiders in confusion)
4. crazy uptight parent(s) that she is psychologically reacting against

I think that it is fairly obvious that she does have a “traditional” family (mom and dad vs. dadxdad/momxmom/dadxdadxmom etc.) regardless of whether they’re broken up now or not. I’m guessing there will be something odd about her parents, simply because of her personality, and how they have been specifically not mentioned in the storyline until now. (except for like, two instances)

yeah, it has been one day, but the one day was very complicated, and I think at the very least it might have come up when the others were discussing Sydney’s record (remember the police report saying “oh the humanity”?)

that part doesn’t really matter though, my real point was asking people about their opinions on Sydney’s parents.

He he, as I hit the submit comment button I predicted I would be picked up on that one. But she is a part doppelgänger, which is one of the most famous shapechanging races. There is no reason why she cannot be both an illusionist (from her Succubus side) and a shapeshifter.

Heh. Sadly that one is just down to artistic license, rather than for plot reasons. DaveB just did not feel that he could get cloth to hang convincingly. Although, knowing your memory, I probably do not need to say that. ;-)

XD Maybe, except, I was the oldest sibling. And yes, fun parents indeed. My dad was/is an inventor who writes scifi in his spare time; my mom used to be a science teacher, and does pen-and-ink drawings in her spare time. Both are also trekkies and made sure I was exposed to Doctor Who by the age of five XD

Ooh, no wonder you hiss at sunlight. You wouldn’t get much of that through those thick clouds. Do you have any childhood memories of the Great Red Spot? I bet you find all these humans to be really puny compared to you and your family!

I’m pretty positive Halo’s dad is going to be a bigger, male version of his daughter. It’ may be possible she got her ADHD from her mother’s side along with her petite build, but I still see her father as the one she take’s after, from the taste for spiciness levels that would make Lum Invader spew flames, to the knack for setting others off balance in social intercourse.

I’m no writer or the like yet, but even if they’ll be one-shot characters, the heroes’ parents should be comparably interesting characters to the children they produced, instead of stock ‘typical parents’ characters. Bland, vanilla people tend to raise offspring that share their vanilla blandness.

We already know her parents are nonconformist enough to name her after her dad, making her ‘junior.’ Also, for a white girl from the “millennial” generation still in her early twenties, she shows a surprising amount of taking the adult world by the horns (already a small business owner, all the travel,etc.) that strikes me as a sign she was probably raised by a bunch that understood the value of such better than a more generic, bandwagon-following nuclear family.

While I don’t see either of them acting anywhere as outlandish as their little swearing machine, Sydney’s parent’s probably are as atypical as she is.

I’m very different from my parents. Happened to get all the or most of the recessive gene expressions. All my other brothers are taller etc. Hair turned white before I was 30, blue eyes, red face, did terribly with most people especially females. Still have that problem. My other brothers have no problem relating. Genes are just a bit more complex than you think. I am the purple three-eyed sheep of the family.

And yes I am assuming that her dad is passed away. My 13 year is _normal_ and nearly gives me heart attacks on a daily basis. He could never have survived a Sydney teen without super powers –regenerative maybe or some kind of time/mind control …

True enough, especially as her prosthetics will need to be secure enough for the rigours of being a sniper. Looking for reasons, I think it plausible that, as she was sitting down, after a long day, she might have loosened the fastenings. Either just to relieve the pressure, or to allow her to massage the stump, discreetly.

As regards Harem, the only incidents I can recall her falling foul of have been the result of her own actions. Teleporting her face into close proximity of Sydney’s fists, for example. Not that Sydney was even a member of Archon at the time.

The other occasion being trying to publicly embarrass her commanding officer. She is lucky Maxima has an … unusual means of direct punishment. Another commander facing such severe insubordination and dis-regard for operational discretion may have been showing her the door. Figuratively speaking.

Honest question, reading this, and rereading her freak out when she tried to respec, what does Sydney sound like? I’m getting mental images of some of those old school black metal vocalists who sounded like demonically possessed cats or parrots.

For some reason, I read all characters’ speech (in all comics/books I read) using my own voice. I never give them any other voice; it might be just because giving characters different voices would be hard for me to imagine, since I’ve been reading many materials for years, and I am familiar with way too many characters to constantly think of voices to give them.

* I love most American accents by the way. In fact accents in general. But having a strong Afrikaans accent as a youth in England, made me realise how badly some accents can grate on others ears, in the wrong setting. Although it took me quite a while to cotton on to that it was causing some antipathy, as it was the first time I had been exposed to such a situation.

I now have what American girls describe as a ‘nice’ English accent. Although my original accent does creep back in if speaking to a South African. But far less pronounced and taking much longer to appear, as the years go by.

I would love it if she had an accent like mine. Where people hear the accent they want. I speak, do you want german? I sound german. You want brazillian? I sound brazillian. What you want, I got it. I moved around a lot so I have a weird mish mash accent. The only person I know with it. I wish for Sydney to have it as well because of well, ego.

Oh yeah, Silverman for sure! Tweak that voice up a few semi tones, and bingo! I’m still picturing her sounding like old Ihsahn when she gets mad. That perfect mix of screechy growling while howling “Respec!”

On the accents, I think it’s kind of hilarious, cause when I hear someone say generic American, more than once I’ve played clips of of a few Swedes I know who have impeccable English, and they always get confused as Americans until they say something along the lines of Helsvik or Styrbjörn.

See Psionicost‘s reply below, which covers most of the options. Personally I view it as a trivial detail, which we can assume was resolved ‘behind the scenes’. Otherwise we push DaveB down the path of having to tie up every loose end and not progress the story.
Of course, if it inspires him to create a funny scene, then that is another matter.

I mentioned this a while back, and am far to lazy to look back at all the comments, but what ever happened to the money sidney was supposed to deposit at the bank? If her business is hurting to bad a missed deposit day could…complicate things for her.

See Psionicost‘s reply below, which covers most of the options. Personally I view it as a trivial detail, which we can assume was resolved ‘behind the scenes’. Otherwise we push DaveB down the path of having to tie up every loose end and not progress the story.

Of course, if it inspires him to create a funny scene, then that is another matter.

1.) It’s in evidence at the police HQ. Even though the robbery was stated to be a publicity stunt, there WAS use of LIVE AMMUNITION. Normally, that takes at least 48 hours to resolve. (It could take weeks.)

2.) The deposit was in the form of a check/ invoice and not cash. As such, Joel could take care of it himself while Sydney’s at ARCHON.

3.) The bank has taken care of the deposit, but is currently doing an internal audit to make sure nothing was misplaced during the confusion of the robbery/publicity stunt. Again that could take several business days.

Companies conducting security tests will, as a matter of routine, inform the police. In this case we can assume that Arianna, or a uniformed intermediary, will have ensured they were also in agreement about maintaining secrecy on the matter before even starting the operation. Anything else would be career suicide for Arianna. Given how close to the wind she is sailing to the wind, in allowing a security test to pass off as an actual bank robbery, as far as the general public are concerned.

Wallpaper versions are always good.
I wonder if DaveB should just release big HD versions of this stuff to the donators. Should be a nice reward for those that support without extra effort on his part, and a nice incentive to those that doubt

Obviously I have no objections to patrons getting perks. And the greater the utility (in this case practically the entire cast in a single shot certainly counts), the better the incentive for folks to do their bit.

No more so than any warrior or soldier who’s seen their share of horrors and made their share of hard choices, I would imagine. A willingness to use deadly force when it is required is not sociopathy. Neither is a liking for blowing things up, or at least half the people I know would be sociopaths *grin* A sociopath is someone who can’t conceive of other people as people, just as things. Here Maxima has already proven that she cares quite a bit about people, whether she likes to show it or not – redirecting supervillains at herself instead of civilians or those under her command, paying for dinner for the group when she didn’t have to, not planning the huge explosion until she knew she could do it in such a way as to keep everyone absolutely safe, etc.

Your reply was not visible when I started writing mine. And your line is very much the view that I like to take with Maxima. Plus all your points are well made.

But, sad to say, none of them negate A Gray Phantom’s suspicions categorically. As an intelligent sociopath could emulate the behaviours you describe, without feeling the emotions you and I both hope are present. We would need either a well trained psychologist, or a super-empath to ferret out the truth.

I suspect she’s a good actress because she’s being charismatic in this speech, and including a false apology to Arianna. Everything she’s said and done prior indicates that she doesn’t sympathize at all to Arianna, or is she truly apologetic for her actions. She doesn’t care that she upset the public, because she had her own agenda.

Why would she lie about an apology? Again, she has an agenda. She made note from Anvil and Dabbler that the team might not accept her as leader after “going off script” (really she went rogue), so now she’s setting a scene.

Why? Being leader puts her in power, and she doesn’t want to lose that. She already made it clear she doesn’t actually care, and for an apology to be legitimate the one apologizing needs to actually empathize with the person they transgressed towards.

Not saying she can’t be used for good, just that it’s unsettling to think that someone with all that power can’t empathize with the pain of others.

Tl;dr Maybe she’s pretending to not be a sociopath, but with some guidance from her peers it could work out – many soldiers are sociopathic, but few can drop nukes at the snap of their fingers.

By that argument, we could diagnose anyone as a sociopath. Keep in mind that she and Arianna have a relationship involving mutual manipulation, we’ve seen less than 24 hours of it in action at this point, and a large part of what we’ve seen involved Arianna using her as a pawn for a publicity stunt.

If there’s an argument for sociopathy in this situation, it’s for Arianna, not Maxima.

Likewise, you’re mischaracterizing her exchange with Anvil and Dabbler; the concern wasn’t that the team might not accept her as leader (that was well settled before the press conference). It was that her superiors might view her as too threatening in the court of public opinion, and cave to pressure to have her replaced. If she were power-hungry as you keep claiming, she would not have ENDANGERED HER COMMAND by going through such a public display of her capabilities. By your own argument, the fact that she could lose her command over that stunt and was well aware of that potential before pulling the trigger on it proves that she is not power hungry. In fact, it demonstrates that she’s willing to accept a lessening of her official authority if it sends a message to dangerous people that they should target her rather than the members of her team that don’t have ‘invulnerability’ in their power set.

Further, we’ve seen her behave in humane and even empathic manners, particularly with Sydney. That alone counts against the notion of her being a sociopath. On a similar note, a sociopath would have difficulty performing the complex feats of empathy that we see from her, in correctly identifying Arianna’s chief frustration (with the spreadsheets), the Brass’s potential reaction, the public outcry she’s accepting, and the various supervillain behaviors she’s discussed.

Also, you keep calling the explosion she displayed in the desert a nuke. It was not. Not only did it not bear the hallmarks of a nuclear explosion in terms of fallout or EMF, she also directly describes it as a Daisycutter impression, which is a conventional explosive of considerably lesser power and range as compared to a nuclear device.

You don’t do your argument any favors when you lie about the facts of the text to get people to agree with you.

Teaching forced me to learn ways to achieve briefness. If you let me, here they are:

– Focus.
An idea bring others, variants, consequences, examples, etc, etc, etc. Do not be carry on, just give the main idea, maybe one of one of the other (two things in total). Wait for the reaction, if needed then extend it a little.

Remember: the listener thinks, they can fill the blanks, if not they will ask.

– Be simple
Keep the explanation or the example short and simple. Use as few elements as you can, a couple, three as much. Do not tell a story, just outline the situation. (*)

IE: “Drug and kidnap all Harems. Tie and blindfold them. Lock them inside a room at an unknow place.” :)

– Do not garnish
The language is amazing and elaborated sentences are beautiful and fulfilling… but consumes resources. Be direct, be short, use few words, say it as talking to someone thru the window of a leaving train :)

“In this situation we can see that there are a few possible variants, I think that the main three are the follow” Uh, uh, just “The three main variants are”.

– Do not show off
To explain, to expose, to lecture, it’s fun, it’s good … it’s addictive. Be aware, when you feels yourself focused in the talking more than the in the listener, is time to shut up.

That is what I intend to do. Even so I spend twice as long pruning than writing ;)

(*) Unless telling a story is what you are interested in :) but that would be another case.

The name means something? What? *is honestly interested* I enjoy making up names, and do so on a regular basis, but I am well aware that true originality is well night impossible with as many cultures and languages and years gone by as there are. ‘Kalietha’ just happened to be the one I was toying around with most at the time I started with digital artwork.

XD The avatar has nothing to do with how I look, except perhaps in coloring. It just happens to be my current favorite pic that I’ve done, and as it was a considerable quality step up from my last self portrait, I thought I’d use it until I did do another self portrait to replace the old one.

I know the truth about precognition. Oh, you emphasised the nobody bit. mmm. Ok, I know how to allow all the religions of the world to get along with each other. How to economically get payloads into orbit in a very environmentally-friendly way. On the negative side I also know how to kill hundreds of thousands of people, with nothing more than words. In a way that nobody else could, that is.

I was alluding to this goddess in a post the other day. I just have a problem with names, and could not be bothered to look it up. Many people in the far east have no problem with religions conflicting with each other, and often worship two or more simultaneously that do just that. Exemplified in this example as it is not just in the same religion, but within the same individual.

A significant proportion, possibly even the majority, of the world’s big business corporate heads and world leaders are. Although I have not seen any studies to support it, I would assume the same applies to senior positions in the military too.

Although we tend to think of sociopaths as being murderous criminals, that need not be the case. As with autism and many other mental conditions, there is a scale. The further up it, the more pronounced the effects are. The most noticeable feature of sociopaths is their lack of empathy. A serious problem in childhood. But one that can be overcome by giving them specific training in social skills. A well-trained sociopath can emulate empathy, even if not actually feeling it.

Because lack of empathy has severe social ramifications, it means that intelligent sociopaths will work harder at developing and understanding social skills than average members of the population. In adult life this creates an interesting group of people.

A group who have no (or reduced) genuine empathy. Which is essential to having a conscience. But who can act as if they have either, or both, if being observed. If you cannot empathise with others, you can exploit them or harm them, without the same kind of inhibitions as others feel. Such executives do not cry if they have to fire people. But the good acting skills allow them to conceal their lack of feelings well. Likewise stabbing someone in the back is second nature to them (either figuratively or literally), so they are likely to rise to the top, when competing against people with a conscience.

Which makes them ideal in the world of big business, politics and the military. Excellent people manipulation skills, a lack of conscience and intelligence all being highly valued by our society. Ok the lack of conscience bit is not advertised as being valued. But it makes profits, so the stockholders are happy and keep paying those executives bigger and bigger bonuses. And similar arguments apply to politicians and officers.

The short answer would have been, “Yes, she may very well be”. Her acting skills may have fooled my bullshit detector. And she certainly does show some of the characteristic traits (underestimating the potential impact of her big-bada-boom on the general populace being one point that you have made well in the past).

There is some evidence that as many as 4% of top executives could be sociopaths. That’s rather a far cry from “many or most”.

I’d say the proof that Maxima is not a sociopath can be found in her interactions with the members of Archon. A sociopath who has learned to blend in will still be at a loss to deal with unusual cases and extreme personalities, and Archon is just chock full of that. Can you really imagine a sociopath, someone with no empathy, figuring out how to deal with Sydney? Or Dabbler?

Can you imagine a sociopath having a prank played on them like the one Harem played on Maxima, and responding by giving the offender a -wedgie-?

Can you imagine a sociopath dealing with Sydney for any length of time?

I’m not getting a sociopathic vibe from Maxima. Though admittedly that may be the point. She might have a higher sense of aggression and maybe a bit dulled emotionally from all the horrors she’s seen, that I’ll grant you. But I’m not getting a feeling she’s sociopathic.

I’m think the opposite really, that the shows of violence, bravado, and arrogance is just part of the show. That genuinely she wants to use her powers for good and help others. The key here is Arianna. They’ve been working together for a little while and Maxima has been using her super powers overtly for longer. Long enough she seems to have enemies right out of the gate. Arianna ticks her off like nothing else. She gets her revenge through tormenting her, if she was a sociopath it would be a simple matter to kill her and blame an enemy. Arianna’s still standing, ergo Maxima can’t be a sociopath.

Sociopathic? No. She clearly has rage & anger management issues, and likely has some (deserved) level of megalomania, but I would not say she has limited emotional capacity.

More likely, Max grows increasingly frustrated because she has all these Superman-level capabilities, yet feels stymied at every turn when she tries to get her job done without employing them. This, accompanied by the clearly short-sighted actions of those people around her (people who clearly have the capacity to know better), and her notably short fuse when it comes to people not listening to her, and her rages are all too predictable (and that predictability could well be her very real achilles heel, so to speak).

See, that I can buy. Working with the public and seeing them at their dumbest, I’ve often felt exactly that and it’s very easy to see where she might start feeling this way. Doesn’t make me a sociopath, nor would it make her a sociopath. That’s it, I think she suffers from working with the public too much.

I’m with Yorp. Unless she has some hidden potential Machiavellian agendas, if Maxima is a sociopath, she’s one of the good ones. Going by the theory that someone’s true character becomes visible when they’re the mouse instead of the cat, Maxima seems like she gets her responsibilities as ArcSWAT Field Commander are the same as that of a field commander in the military. Dabbler seems to check out as well, given how civil and rational she acted when Sydney’s antics wiped that smug smirk of her face twice. That leaves Harem, who seems to eventually bounce back like nothing happened every time she gets the bull’s horn. She probably just likes tempting fate, and probably knows how to do so on her own time, which technically she has been doing up to this point.

The major difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is: a sociopath knows how to ‘fit’ into society and ‘hide’, but they are not really ‘part’ of society (the lack of empathy makes it difficult)

But, just because we they have no empathy doesn’t mean they can’t form attachments with/to, or genuinely care about, others

And yes, those are the ones you have to make sure to never piss off: they will have no hesitation to make you hurt, and hurt in ways you can’t begin to imagine (and if you think they will blindly focus solely on you would be the second biggest mistake: as Yorp said/implied, they tend to be highly intelligent and good at self-preservation)

With 50% of those incarcerated are psychopaths or sociopaths. There is some dispute over nomenclature here. Very few of them are intelligent enough to control their urges. Those who do become presidents, generals, popes etc. and kill via proxy. They want power. They aren’t joiners unless they expect to take over whether it is a corporation or a nation. Their work is often substandard, it is their other strengths that win out by manipulation of people. We don’t want them in charge of anything.

Not everyone evil is a sociopath. I imagine it’s EASIER to go that way if you can’t properly empathize, but it’s perfectly to get twisted inside in other ways. And there are plenty of people who are capable of empathy and just don’t care, or who care about their own comfort more.

Yes, was going to say not all sociopaths are evil, the same way not all dictators are evil (those on the outside may view things differently, or those simply wanting something they feel they are being denied)

Okay, not quite what you were saying, but still: just because you are a sociopath does not mean you are evil

THEN you get those who psychologically barricade themselves under all kinds of rationalizations, becoming capable of all kinds of vile actions, because that’s not how they see it or themselves. Not even the decency to disfigure half of their face and decide things with a coin toss, this type.

For the record Maxima seems normal to me. Now a smart psychopath could feign emotions when needed. They just look a someone dying in the same we we look a chair. No emotional attachments. So that frees them to go far in a culture especially the more free they are to hurt others without need to cover it up. Lying is the easiest thing for them to do and they will pass the polygraph. A bit of pseudo science still used by business but not law enforcement. Too easy to fool.

Not all killers are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are killers. How they are raised can help some. However our present business ethos seems to have been conceived and written by psychopaths and implemented by those who emulate psychopathic behavior. Ayn Rand considered such people to be “supermen.” She exulted at it and lionized it and too many others adopted it with varying results.

On Ayn Rand, I agree with some of what she said. Everyone whose read a few of my posts knows I don’t buy the whole doing good because you owe it to society, or without reward because you’re just that swell a person. I don’t trust it either when someone does do all that stuff out of some imagined debt. What a person does with their powers is up to them. Hopefully they’ll do good with their powers or at least keep it limited to actions that do little harm to those around them.

It’s good when someone does good for the society, but I certainly agree with Ayn that such things should be because the person that does it decides to do it. And hopefully with clear motives because if they aren’t showing those motives, then they’re certainly doing it for something and that something may not be pretty.

Something that kind of comes out with me is that I see myself as having no value, but I see everyone else as having some inherent value. So that’s more than enough reason for me to do “selfless” things.

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